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Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Collaboration Project
Luis Cruz
California State University, Long Beach
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Background & Justification

At Santa Ana high school Mr. Cruz is working with a moderate to severe adapted physical

education (APE) class that has 12 students in grades 9th to 12th. Ten of the students have

intellectual disability, one student has autism, and one student has multiple disability. Currently,

the students in adapted physical education are supposed to be in an inclusion physical education

class. This is the first year that Santa Ana high school has implemented doing this with general

and adapted physical education students in the same class. Inoke Tukia is the general physical

education (GPE) teacher that has both sets of students on his roster but does not have an APE

background nor does he have experience working with adapted students, therefor it is difficult

for him to appropriately include the adapted students within the activities. Giancarlo Pena is the

adapted physical education teacher who comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to work with the

adapted students.

Mr. Cruz was hired at Santa Ana high school in January and now works with the APE

students on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays when Giancarlo is not there, and assists Giancarlo

on the days that he is there. The students are always separated from the GPE class and do not do

any activities together. Mr. Cruz will collaborate with the GPE teacher and create a lesson where

the general and APE students can participate together in the same activity and both benefit. Mr.

Cruz is creating a baseball lesson plan where12 of the GPE students will be one-on-one coaches

for the adapted students, who will be the athletes. This will help the GPE students become more

comfortable interacting with students with disabilities and give the students with disabilities

more confidence.

Define all Allied Professionals’ Job Roles

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A GPE teacher teaches skills and activities that translate to being physically active outside

of school to students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. They teach physical and motor

fitness; skills in aquatics, games, rhythms, dance, and sports; and the use of leisure time to

engage in vigorous health-related physical activity (Lytle et al. 2010). Physical education

teachers have a degree in kinesiology and a specialization in pedagogy. Physical education

teachers have to complete an internship and pass a content knowledge test in order to receive

their teaching credential as well as be certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid.

These teachers have a responsibility to be the leading voice for physical activity at the school and

in the community.

APE teachers work on fundamental locomotor skills and object control skills with the

students as it relates to physical activity. They also focus on motivation, management of

behavior, and acquisition of skills that lead to a healthy, physically active lifestyle. Adapted

physical education teachers asses the students on their locomotor and object control skills and

use the results to write goals for the students’ individual education programs. They have a

bachelor’s degree in kinesiology with a concentration in pedagogy and an added authorization in

adapted physical education. They have to complete all the same course work as a GPE teacher

before they can complete their added authorization program to be able to teach adapted physical

education. APE teachers have a responsibility to make the students and parents aware of the

opportunities for children with disabilities to be active outside of school.

APE teachers collaborate with GPE teachers to help them include the students in their class

with disabilities, so those students can appropriately participate and be challenged. The APE

teacher will share information from the students’ IEPs and suggest modifications to allow those

students to safely participate and be successful. Organizations for adapted and general physical
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education teachers are SHAPE America and National Association for Sports, and Physical

Education (NASPE). Resourceful websites are www.pecentral.org and www.shapeamerica.org.

Plan: Development and Documentation of a Working Plan

In order to have an activity where the general and adapted physical education students are

working together, the APE teacher needs to get 12 students from the general physical education

class that can work best with his students. Mr. Tukia was responsible for getting 12 students he

thought could work best with the adapted students. Mr. Cruz was responsible for setting up the

equipment for the unit and preparing the GPE students to work with the adapted students. This

was going to be a 10-day process. The first week, the GPE students will participate with the

adapted students and observe their behaviors and personalities as well as watch how the

paraprofessionals work with the students. During the first week nobody is going to have set

partners. This is so the general education students can observe the overall class for the first

couple days.

The first week will consist of throwing, catching and hitting activities that the class will be

doing together. For the second week, the teacher will assign each GPE student to be a coach for

one adapted student. The GPE students are referred to as the coaches and the adapted students

are referred to as the athletes. Each day they will be working on skills together (See Appendix A

for Calendar). At the end of the week there will be a game between Mr. Tukia’s general physical

education class and Mr. Cruz’s adapted physical education class. Mr. Tukia will have been

preparing his students in a baseball unit as well.

The Friday of the second week is when the game will take place. There are two

paraprofessionals and they will be the umpires for the game. The coaches (general physical
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education students) will be on the field with the athletes (adapted physical education students)

assisting them on where to throw the ball. When the athletes are up to bat, the coaches will help

them run the bases. Whoever is pitching, will under hand toss the ball to the batters. If the batter

gets three strikes, then the teacher will put the ball on a tee for the batter to hit off.

Reflection and Summary of the Experience

The benefit of having a lesson that incorporates both sets of students, is that all the students

will get more comfortable working with diverse learners. General and adapted physical

education students typically do not have any classes together and there is little to no opportunity

during or after school for them to interact. Having students with disabilities work with students

without disabilities, will allow the students with disabilities to have a better peer model on how

to move and do activities. “It has been demonstrated that peer tutor programs effectively provide

additional one-to-one instruction resulting in greater motor and fitness gains not only for those

being tutored, but also for the tutors, themselves” (Houston-Wilson et al., 2013, p. 39).

A challenge of having an inclusion class where the students without disabilities are peer

tutors for students with disabilities is that the teacher has to make sure the peer tutors are

properly trained. Sometimes peer tutors can try and help too much, not allowing the students

being tutored to have enough freedom to be challenged. Sometimes the students without

disabilities can become frustrated, which can show to the student with a disability and in that

case, make them feel discouraged. Due to the closing of the school, this lesson was not able to be

done. By teaching this lesson, Mr. Cruz was looking to learn how affective an inclusion lesson

like this could be for both sets of students.

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Santa Ana High School had the right idea when trying to make an inclusion class with

general and adapted physical education students but did not properly train the GPE teacher, nor

did they take in to account what type of GPE students were in the class. Mr. Tukia was unsure

how to appropriately work with the adapted and general physical education students at the same

time. Mr. Pena gave Mr. Tukia a variety of modifications for the adapted students so they could

participate but Mr. Tukia was still having trouble dividing his focus equally among both sets of

students. By doing peer tutor activities such as this, it would allow Mr. Tukia to have help with

the adapted students, as well as giving both students an opportunity to work with and learn from

each other. The peer tutor (athlete and coach) and partner method is a strategy that can be used in

any activity.

Appendix A:

Week 1 Week 2
Monday GPE Students observe class and do GPE students are assigned to an APE student to
activities with the APE students coach.
Activity: Throwing mechanics and Activity: Playing catch and having the
throwing at target “coaches” throw pop flies and ground balls to
the “athletes”
Tuesday GPE students observe and do activities with Fitness Lab
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APE students
Activity: Catching mechanics and catching
fly balls
Wednesday GPE students start helping the APE students Two stations: 1.) hitting with under hand pitch
but are not assigned partner yet and 2.) throwing and catching.
Activity: Hitting mechanics and hitting off
tees.
Thursday Fitness Lab Having the students take Turns hitting while the
rest of the students try to field the ball and throw
it to the correct place.
Friday Students will take turns hitting and running Take Me Out to the Ball Game
bases while other students are in the field
(Game Day)
trying to catch the balls that are hit. GPE are
assisting with APE students

References

Lieberman, L., Houston-Wilson, C., Horton, M., & Casser, S. (2013) Peer tutoring: A plan for

instructing students of all abilities. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance,

68(6), p.39
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Lavay, B., Lytle, R., & Rizzo, T. (2010, February). What is a highly qualified adapted

physical education teacher, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 81(2),

pp.40-44